Mumbai: Crooks sold forged train tickets to commuters

The gang of four would print out bogus tickets made on a computer and sell them to unsuspecting commuters at Mulund station; they had been doing this for eight days when they were finally caught

For the past week or so, a gang of four has been cheating commuters at Mulund railway station by selling them fake local tickets made on Photoshop. They had been so successful that they were considering selling similarly forged long-distance tickets. However, their operation lasted all of eight days before the cops caught them.

Mastermind: The shop near the station, where the tickets were sold.

Commuters who bought the fakes from the gang may have been glad to escape the queues at the official ticketing counters at the station, but were sorely disappointed when they were caught traveling with counterfeit tickets. Things came to a head when the increasing complaints drove a railway official to inform the police about the racket.

Deepak Sukhmangal Kanojia (inset) was the brains of the operation. Pics/Rajesh Gupta

The Mulund police began investigating after Pravin Tavde, chief commerce officer of Central Railway, lodged a complaint, said Senior Police Inspector Rajaram Vanmane, adding, “A team was immediately dispatched and the four illegal ticket sellers were arrested from the spot and every ticket found inside their office was seized.”

The accused were identified as Mulund resident Shankar Jaysingh Singh (44), and Kalwa residents Manish Narendra Pande (22), Vipin Lalji Shukla (21) and Deepak Sukhmangal Kanojia (21). With the arrest of Kanojia, who was the mastermind, the police were also successful in recovering the computer, printer and colour cartridges used to make the fake tickets.

Police inspector Prakash Mansukh from Mulund police station said, “They made these tickets on Photoshop and sold it from a small shop at Mulund station. They had randomly given the tickets numbers from Z-68080001 to Z-68062500.”

They had been selling the bogus local tickets from their streetside shop for eight days and were planning to start selling long-distance train tickets as well, added Senior PI Vamane.

The four accused have been booked under Sections 465 (forgery), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using a forged document as genuine), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Indian Penal Code.